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Edelman Financial Engines

Engaged employer

pros and cons perspective from a non long timer - Senior Software Edelman Financial Engines Employee Review

3.0
Dec 22, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1) It is a small company where everyone is very approachable - no hiccups, no egos - straight up ask a question and you will be able to resolve any sorts of issues. Felt like a family to be honest :) If pay was not the issue, I would have stayed here and fixed the rest of the cons below myself! 2) Very nice office space (and gym facility by Moffett) 3) They switched to Agile - chaotic but technically fun. It pushes you to being a better all rounder developer. 4) Company's business model is decent - surprised that its not as popular as other financial startups despite its long run and having been a public company for some time.

Cons

1) Top Con: The pay was below market for engineers - one of the main reasons I left. This valley is too expensive to handle and an extra cash really helps. 2) Because of 1), a lot of good talent leaves soon. And a lot of previous veterans left as well (either because of the stock price not having decent swings or just politically ousted). 3) Tech stack was really inefficient (that's right - stubborn architects - hope you fixed it at some point!) - from release management to the actual software deployed - it was too bulky to manage. One huge eclipse/ant project - divided into packages pertaining to different teams - and then deployed in one shebang - yikes! There was always a lot of issue with performance (inefficient use of db pools, ORM abuse, etc) or regression because some team inadvertently modified an overlapping package. A proper process for code reviews was inexistent - was done unofficially. Maybe it has changed now - but that was how it was when I joined.

Explore other reviews about Edelman Financial Engines

5.0
Jun 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great firm if you are in to sales

Cons

Very high fee and the clients are not happy

4.0
Jun 23, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Great team from department head down - Collaboration is encouraged - Self-starter culture with good room for side projects - "See something, say something" approach allows questioning methodology without a feeling of personal attacks or "dumb questions" and enables team members to support each other in a safe environment - Work from home

Cons

- Executive leadership does not know what they want - Consistent turnover in C-Suite leads to departments acting like small internal companies rather than part of a larger system - Limited permission access for team members means that any absence or time-off can lead to a backlog of deployments

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